Backup Software

[Viral]

Anyone have any experience with backup software? The only one I know of is Norton Ghost. I've only used a very old version for copying the image of a HDD onto another HDD so I know nothing about the backup features.

I'm looking for something to backup over 500GB of data from 3 different PC's onto one external HDD. Something smart that can properly do incremental backups would definitely help save time.

So how is Norton Ghost to use for this kind of thing? Are there any good alternatives?

[crainger]

Acronis is considered the best of the best, although I'm finding it getting more and more bloated.

The inbuilt Windows 7 one is pretty good, it'll do an image and regular backups with little fuss.

[Viral]

Interesting. I'll try out the win7 backup on my mates win7 pc and see how it goes.

All PC's are on XP now but we're looking at a new file server so that will definitely have win7. I'll have to see if it is ok with backing up data from other XP machines over the network though. I have a feeling it may not feature anything like that but I'll look into it.

Thanks for the help.

[MikeC]

Originally Posted by crainger

Acronis is considered the best of the best, although I'm finding it getting more and more bloated.

The inbuilt Windows 7 one is pretty good, it'll do an image and regular backups with little fuss.

Agreed. I ditched Acronis when it failed to restore an XP backup from a system that was running dual boot (XP/Vista).

I've use the system backup feature in Vista and 7 and find that they meet my requirements. Take a full backup and then incremental backups to save on disk space. If you're a "real" man, you should test the restore capability...LOL.

I've done so on a couple of occasions and the restore worked flawlessly.

[Viral]

Ha just realised it's in vista too, went to search for it and realised it was at the bottom of the start menu... even though I swear I've never used it. Vista is smart I tells ya.

It looks like it has everything I need, I'll do a mock run at work tomorrow on the one Vista PC on the network. Was going to buy Acronis with the new file server but don't see the point now after the bad feedback.

Thanks fellas

How does the image back up in 7 work regarding adding files after the image is created? i.e. would I install drivers and apps, create the backup, then set it to do incremental backups to another folder or can the image be modified after it's created?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by crainger

Acronis is considered the best of the best, although I'm finding it getting more and more bloated.

The inbuilt Windows 7 one is pretty good, it'll do an image and regular backups with little fuss.

+1

[DiscipleDOC]

I'm using BackupExec 12.5. I'm backing up daily to external 500 GB hd's. I am backing an Exchange Server, SharePoint, SQL, and a host of other servers. I'm happy and I have yet to have a problem.

[crainger]

Originally Posted by grey_1

How does the image back up in 7 work regarding adding files after the image is created? i.e. would I install drivers and apps, create the backup, then set it to do incremental backups to another folder or can the image be modified after it's created?

Thanks.

I don't think the image can be manipulated. 7 warns that the image is an image, it doesn't even allow you to restore select files in the image, it's everything or nothing. One downside to Windows backup that Acronis doesn't share. With Acronis you can mount an image and salvage what you want.

[Zelda_fan]

BY FAR the best backup solution for a Windows based PC is to get a Windows Home Server. Complete image backups on a daily basis. 100% automated. It backs it up in the background using minimal system resources. I played Dragon Age while the backup was running, and it ran without a hitch. Data redundancy in case one of the hard drives goes bad. And it uses an interesting compression technology. I have 12 unique image backups of my 250GB of data, and it takes up 119 GB of space on my server. If your hard drive crashes you can get it up and running in less than an hour (provided you have a replacement hard drive). If you ever need to restore a file it lets you open an individual image and select the individual file you'd like to restore.

I put a 2x750GB hot-swappable Windows Home Server together for $500. An amazing piece of technology for the price.

[Zelda_fan]

Originally Posted by Viral

Anyone have any experience with backup software? The only one I know of is Norton Ghost. I've only used a very old version for copying the image of a HDD onto another HDD so I know nothing about the backup features.

I'm looking for something to backup over 500GB of data from 3 different PC's onto one external HDD. Something smart that can properly do incremental backups would definitely help save time.

So how is Norton Ghost to use for this kind of thing? Are there any good alternatives?

dude, get a Windows Home Server and stick a couple of 2TB hard drives in it. It would be perfect for what you want.

Originally Posted by crainger

I don't think the image can be manipulated. 7 warns that the image is an image, it doesn't even allow you to restore select files in the image, it's everything or nothing. One downside to Windows backup that Acronis doesn't share. With Acronis you can mount an image and salvage what you want.

That's what I was wondering. Thanks crainger.